Voices

Voices


Galatians 2:20 "My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (NLT)


I was glad that I made the decision to go to the cottage instead of San Francisco for the invasive treatment of my nerve.  I just needed a break from doctors, physical therapists, nutritionists, even my therapist here at home.  Has it really been four years that I have been seeing her twice a week?  Yes, I am glad I even had a break from her and trying to figure out how to fix myself or be still and let God do it.  I need to just be, even if it means ignoring the Eating Disorder and the neuralgia.  I can't quite turn off the voice in my head that continues to taunt me, "If the eating disorder isn't a choice, then how does one chose to recover?  Is it something like the flu that I can catch again and again?  Or is it an illness more like Chicken pox that once you have it you shouldn't get it again? But I got it again!  How do I do this?  Can I do this? Is It a waste of my time and energy if I will catch it again?" I am  able to at least quiet the voice for a few days by just asking God to worry about all of this for me.

As I travel I-75 south back to my home, the critical voice seems to rise above the hum of the wheels on the pavement.  I curl up with my dog on my lap and sleep just to halt it's assault on my body image.  We turn into the drive way and the wheels of discontent begin to turn in my head.  I try to focus on the great weekend(that turned into a week), and that I get to settle into some sort of routine for the next few months.  I can't remember the last time I was home for almost three months straight, and I am looking forward to it.

I wake to feeling thick and fear I look as thick as I feel.  Maybe I will feel better after I work out?  But, after five or more miles on the treadmill watching my breasts bounce up and down in the  reflection off the attached TV and catching my side view in the mirrors I feel worse.  I can't not step on the scale.  I hear its voice calling me into the locker room to face my number one nemesis, the number on the scale.  I say it is the number, but it is really me.  Just like most of us with eating disorders,  I am my own nemesis; my own worst critic.  I ignore the compassionate voice that is shyly speaking up inside of me, "don't do this to yourself you are not a number you aren't your disease!"  It is drowned out by the call of the scale as its voice escalates like the crescendo of a symphony.  I step up to the scale,  (Note to self; don't weigh yourself  after a vacation) knowing that I am setting myself up for, in my eyes failure!  I slide the weight ever so slowly up the lever further and further way from the fulcrum.  118 lbs.  Panic sets in and tears form, but do not fall.  I inhale deeply and scan the locker room for any voyeurs that at times comment on my weight. (why is it ever okay for anyone except my clinicians to ask about my weight?) I exhale and am alone and lonely in this excruciating moment.  I draw another breath feeling an essence of relief that I am not over the pivotal 120lbs, the  arbitrary line my clinicians have drawn between sick and well.  What if it was 120 lbs?  Would that mean I wasn't "sick anymore?"  Here is the great myth about eating disorders; that it is about the weight.  It isn't about the weight, but what the weight means to those of us enslaved to the scale. It is about our self worth being measured by what we appear to be and not who we really are.  Do I have to look sick, to be sick?  If I don't look sick does that mean I don't have the eating disorder. Well, here is a common myth, that you can tell by looking at someone if they have an eating disorder.  In a February meeting at the NIMH Alliance for Research Progress Cynthia Bulik. Ph.D. states that, "eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes.  You could be normal weight yet still have a-typical anorexia nervosa if you have lost a lot of weight."  I also know from personal testimonies that some of the sickest people I know are of normal weight, but are binging and purging, or simply purging on a regular basis.  So, I guess this answers the question, could I still be sick.  As my weight stabilizes, am I allowed to continue treatment for the the parts of me that still feel wounded despite the weight?  I wrestle with this concept daily even as I feel stronger physically and emotionally, but not quite there.

I had been speaking to myself all week long about weight and my body. "You will be fine and you will get used to this body just as you grew (far to easily) accustomed to the bony body, the pregnant body, and the one you settled into after Mitch was delivered."  Yes, I grew accustomed to all those bodies that was really just one body....mine.  Did I like them all?

I loved my pregnant body!  This body meant freedom to nurture, but not necessarily myself.  I knew I had another life within me, counting on me to nourish it so it could grow.  So, if ever there was a time to let  go and "step up to the plate" it was now.  And when the line appeared on that stick, I was sure this pea sized creature needed a cheeseburger.  Why wasn't okay for me to need a cheeseburger?  I guess the same reason that I can show compassion, but not receive it, or give it to myself.  Although this too is beginning to shift.  The thing about eating disorders, addictions, and life is that the shifting is so very tricky.  It is like scaling those walls again and again.  We go higher, then we slip, then a little higher, then slip, and I am starting to see that this is ok.  It keeps us on our toes and reaching for God's hand.

I believed I loved my bony body with the muscles and the veins exposed.  I compared, at one point, watching my body move to that of watching a thoroughbred race.  The muscles straining just beneath the surface as it thundered toward the finish fascinanting me.  I, however, was no thoroughbred.  I now see that I was muscled with veins protruding, but more on the verge of collapsing than thundering towards any home except The Lords.

I don't want to grow accustomed to this slightly fuller body; I want to love it.  It saddens me that this is so difficult and pulls my mind away from my real value and truth of my eternal identity in Christ.  Would I talk to another of His children the way I speak to myself?  I found myself in a debate about wearing a fitted running shirt, or wearing one that was more comfortable; that didn't cling to my perceived rolls.
I hate the feeling of this shirt hugging my curves.  It screams at me, "Oh my gosh you have gained sooo much weight!"  And according to the scale I have gained 3 and 1/2 pounds.  Do I force my self to wear it as punishment, or in celebrations for all the hard work I have done?  Both seem like viable options, but I am scared that I am losing control and convinced that this sudden weight gain has come out of the blue.  I am also scared that it will continue to encroach on my body leaving me fat and somehow hiding my identity beneath it.

I decide I will wear it as punishment for allowing this weight to creep on as I hear a voice from within my head.  "You have a let this happen.  You have these fleshy rolls, now feel it and deal with it!"  I wear the shirt and don't like it!  I throw on a light weight vest as if to say "fuck you to the voice."  I may have to feel the roles of flesh, but I can't let anyone see them.  I am afraid that they will see this new body as a sign of weakness and not of strength.  This all plays with my mind.  I question what to eat, if I should eat? I sense the freedom I was beginning to feel slip away.  Instead of pressing on, I feel the eating disorder pressing in on  me like a vice shutting of my air and my voice.

I am hungry but I deny it.  Do I hide this body, embrace it, or allow it to fade away again.  I feel like a dog toy being tugged at by all three of my dogs at the same time.